State Senator Steve Yarbrough has been sucking at the public teat for years, making loads of money with his various School Tuition Organizations (STO) and related businesses, all of which get their funding from Tuition Tax Credits — aka backdoor vouchers. The courts say the tax credits are legal even though state supported vouchers are unconstitutional, because the money goes straight to the STOs. But at tax time, the taxpayers get 100% of their “donations” back as refunds, making it a distinction without a financial difference, especially to Yarbrough who is living large off these publicly-funded programs.
Now Yarbrough is working actively to cut public schools’ already scandalously low funding with three bills which would make it harder for school districts to pass bonds and overrides — SB1182, SB1254 and SB1287.
I co-host a cable access TV show, Education: The Rest of the Story, with Ann-Eve Pedersen, who is President of the Arizona Education Network and understands school finances better than anyone I know. The 5 minute video above is a terrific tutorial on the bills and how they will hurt schools if they pass.
BTW, you can watch the half hour shows here, or you can watch 5-10 minute segments listed by topic on youtube.
This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2014.
Yarbrough is an A #1 crook. He’s the reason I won’t make tax-deductible contributions to the preschool at our house of worship through his company.
I. Don’t. Trust. Him.
Isn’t blind faith wonderful….
In a principled society the Steve Yarbroughs would be forced to choose between owning and operating businesses that receive substantial income from public funding and serving in elected offices in which they help make the laws that provide that funding. Fortunately for Senator Yarbrough he need make no such choice. His activities appear to be legal but they fail the smell test as far as their ethical content is concerned. One of the most recent gimmicks on which he will get to vote is a mandate that out of service public school properties be sold, with charter and private schools being given first chance to buy them. It’s SB 1100 and you ought to urge your legislators to oppose it, if only to deprive Yarbrough yet another opportunity to gain financially from his elective office.
In Texas, the head of the Insurance Commission ended up being investigated by the Attorney General for a conflict of interests (he was a major slient partner in an Insurance company after deregulation). (Happy to say that my daughter exposed him)
Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen in Arizona any time soon, becasuse I believe that the State’s Attorney General may have more conflicts than Mr. Yarbrough.
And you wonder why most of the individuals from crime families are re-located to Arizona than any other state, under the U.S. Marshall’s Witness Protection Program .
It’s amazing to me that this guy is constantly re-elected. We need civil rights workers to go to Chandler and release them and us from this charlatan.
If you have the “right” church on your side in that area, no problem with getting elected.
They got rid of the other one by having another member of the church run against him in the recall election.
All across the country the Republican party is the party of greed. Sales Tax the poor, tax breaks of every kind for the wealthy, then special deals and favors for the rich.
That is one thing Arizona is in the top five…give to the greedy not the needy.